


Safety Meeting

by copperbadge



Category: White Collar
Genre: Friendship, Other, bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-07
Updated: 2011-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:38:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jones and Diana talk shop, promotions, politics, and the sex lives of their colleagues during the weekly Friday Night Safety Meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> The blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of Spider, who asked for Jones-Diana BFF fic. Safety Meetings are the one thing I'm truly nostalgic about when I think about grad school. Beta credit goes to Anya and Foxy, who flogged me with parallel construction.

Every Friday night, at least when they weren't working cases or anticipating one over the weekend, the agents of the White Collar task force assembled for the Safety Meeting.

Its location moved around a lot; Agent Barrigan and Agent Jones, as Peter's lieutenants, chose week by week, so that you couldn't just show up. You had to be a guest or an agent of the task force. Diana always seemed amused when people complained about this; "What kind of agent are you gonna be if you can't get a simple location out of a suspect?" she'd ask.

Ostensibly, the reason for the Safety Meeting was to review procedures for the week and discuss best practices. In reality, it was to drink and socialize and maybe gripe a little about the boss. Diana and Jones sat in state, rulers of the little empire, and presided over the rest of the agents, toning things down whenever it got too outrageous.

Peter probably knew. He usually knew everything. But Peter also knew that light control was the best control. He never crashed the meeting, never asked how it had gone, just gathered up his coat and holster (and, later, his CI) and went home at 5:30 every Friday. At 5:35, everyone else went out to whatever bar Diana and Jones had chosen and got their Safety on.

"I missed this," Diana said, relaxing in a booth with a Corona. Christie, across the room, was schooling the junior agents at pool. "I tried to fire one up in DC but it didn't really take. People kept waiting for the meeting to start."

Jones laughed, picking at the huge pile of nachos the table had ordered. "Yeah, we missed you too," he said. "Didn't feel right without my wingman."

" _Your_ wingman?" she asked skeptically.

"Co-pilot. Pilot! Whatever," Jones waved a hand. "Wasn't the same without you. I'm glad you came back."

"Me too," she agreed.

"How's Christie doing?"

Diana glanced across the room. Christie saw the movement, raised a hand to wave; she lowered her cue and sank a shot, showing off.

"Better than she was," Diana said, looking a little sad. "I thought she'd love New York on sight."

"Sometimes it takes time," Jones replied.

"What about you, any pretty girls on the horizon?"

Jones smiled lazily. "One or two."

"Some day, stringing them along like you do is going to get you in trouble," Diana said.

"I don't string anyone along!" Jones protested. "I just, you know. Keep my options open."

"Mmhm, and do they know that?"

Jones shrugged. "I don't know. Thinking of changing it up. Finding the _one_."

"You're spending too much time with Neal. He'll turn you into a romantic."

"Maybe. You think Christie's the one?"

Diana sat back. "Yeah. I mean, she came with me. And stayed. That's gotta mean something, right? I think so."

Jones contemplated Christie, who was counting her winnings from the pool game. "That's good. I think I should do that, find someone to settle down with. Not getting any younger. Hey, that reminds me, who do you know in the gangs unit?"

"Couple of guys. Why?"

"Ruiz tried to headhunt me last week. Offered me a bump and maybe a task force of my own in a year or two."

"Wow." Diana leaned forward. "You thinking about it?"

"Told him I would."

"Peter'd be _livid._ You know how he and Ruiz get."

"I asked him what he thought," Jones said.

"Seriously? What'd he say?"

Jones chewed on a nacho chip, washing it down with some beer. "He said the Bureau doesn't hand out promotions like candy. Said I should go if I thought I'd like it."

"But?"

"But," Jones said, dropping his voice a little and breaking out his very best Peter Burke imitation, "There's no intellectual challenge there like there is here. You've got a brain, Jones, you should make sure you're using it."

Diana burst out laughing. "Oh man, don't ever let him catch you doing that."

"Don't worry. I save it for special occasions. It cracks Mrs. Burke up, though."

"So?" Diana asked. "What do _you_ think?"

Jones sipped his beer. "I think I like it where I am. Think maybe if I stick around, when Peter moves up...it'd be you or me, y'know?"

Diana nodded. "You think Peter's moving up?"

"Clearance rates are good. Hughes can't keep going forever. And it's not like people are gonna stop committing fraud anytime soon."

"What if we both moved up?" Diana asked. Jones tilted his head, curious. "Okay, say Hughes retires -- again -- and Peter gets his bump. The unit's expanding, we're already taking on as much as we can. You take financial crimes, I'll take art crime and sales fraud. You know Peter's going to want to reorganize anyway."

Jones mulled it over. "That's not a bad idea. On the other hand," he said, slyly, "maybe when Hughes leaves I'll put in my name for Assistant Director."

"Boss of Peter!" Diana's eyes widened in faux-shock. "Blue-flamer!"

"Someone's gotta keep standards up around here," Jones said airily.

"Ohhhh, Harvard boy, you are going to be slapped down so _hard_ if Peter finds out you said that," Diana teased. Christie, apparently done fleecing the FBI, appeared at the edge of the booth and slid in next to Diana, kissing her on the cheek. "Hey, baby."

"Hi you," Christie replied. "Clinton, you keeping her out of trouble?"

"Doing my best," Jones answered. "She's tempting me into a coup."

"She does that," Christie said. "Sweetie, isn't that your boss?"

"What?" Diana asked, following Christie's gaze. Jones's head turned too. "Oh my God!"

Peter Burke was standing outside the bar, talking on his cellphone. The tinted windows meant he probably couldn't see inside, but Diana couldn't think of a single reason Peter would be stalking them on a Friday night unless there was a case.

"Who's he talking to?" Christie asked, half-leaning around Diana.

"What am I, psychic?" Diana asked. Peter made a frustrated face just as another figure came into view. "Oh my _God!_ "

"What, what?" Christie looked up at her. "Who's that? Diana, is your boss cruising?"

"What's he doing with Neal?" Jones asked.

" _That's_ Neal Caffrey?" Christie asked. Peter hung up as Neal approached, also on his cellphone; Neal gave him a grin and put his own phone in his pocket. "He doesn't look like I pictured him."

"Since when are you picturing Neal?" Diana asked. Christie gave her a grin.

"Relax, Di. Are you sure that's him? Because he looks like Agent Burke should be paying him when they're done," Christie added.

"Yeah, usually he's wearing a tie," Diana muttered. Neal did look a lot more...casual than usual. She wondered what they were investigating. 

"He knocked off early," Jones said, turning back to them. "You think he was giving us the slip? Think they have a hot case?"

"Oh, sweetheart, you're so adorably innocent," Christie said.

"Okay, one, that would be too weird, Peter's not sleeping with Neal," Diana said. "Two, Peter said he had date night with Eliz -- "

"Oh," Jones interrupted, as Elizabeth appeared from the other direction. Peter kissed her hello, an arm lingering around her, and then she turned into him a little and craned her neck, kissing Neal hello on the cheek. "Date night...?"

"The Burkes take a walk on the wild side," Christie observed gleefully, as all three of them strolled off together, Peter's arm around his wife's waist, her other hand clasped in Neal's.

Jones gave her a look that Diana could only interpret as scandalized. "You really think?"

"I'm sorry, were you not looking at the same threesome we were looking at?" Christie asked, leaning back. "Your boss and his wife are totally sleeping with the help, honey."

"I do not believe it," Diana said, in a tone that told them both she totally did.

"Mrs. Burke's a lucky woman, if you like that kind of thing," Christie put in.

"Peter obviously likes both kinds of things," Diana managed, and then she and Christie broke down into snorting laughter.

"It's not funny!" Jones insisted.

"It's totally funny," Christie replied. "An office romance! This is so cute."

"I have to work with them!" Jones said.

"We have to work with them," Diana corrected, giving him a wicked smile. Jones's eyes widened, and then he began to look thoughtful.

"You're pretty good at innuendo," he said to her.

"You're not so bad at double entendre yourself," Diana replied. Jones relaxed a little. "But we tell no one, right?"

"Who would we tell?" Jones asked, panic rising in his eyes.

"No one. That's the point," Diana said.

"Hey!" Henderson said, leading a team of what Diana and Jones affectionately called the Baby Fibbies over to the table. "We miss anything?"

"Not a thing," Jones said.

"Not even three things," Diana managed, biting her lip to keep from laughing. Christie kicked her under the table as the agents gave each other confused looks.

"Somebody get me a beer," Christie ordered imperiously.

"Get your own beer!" one of them protested.

"Hey, the lady asked for a beer," Jones retorted in his sharpest voice. The other agents looked cowed.

"Sir, yes sir," another agent drawled, wandering off.

"Thank you, Clinton," Christie said, and rubbed her leg against Diana's. Diana beamed at her.

"This is gonna be _fun_ ," she told Jones in an undertone.


End file.
